


A Better Side of You to Admire

by yekoc



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Boot Worship, Bottom Damen, D/s if you squint, M/M, PWP, Post-Canon, Spoilers for Kings Rising
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-15
Updated: 2016-02-15
Packaged: 2018-05-20 21:25:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6025630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yekoc/pseuds/yekoc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Damen remembered slender fingers in dark curls, the press of lips to boot leather.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Better Side of You to Admire

The slaves were still there when they arrived at Delpha. Damen had known that they would be. His decree, issued from Ios in the earliest days of his reign, was only weeks old. The kyroi, and Laurent’s councillors, were still debating the details and practicalities of implementing it, of erasing a tradition thousands of years old, one that was, as little as he might have wanted to admit it, at the very bedrock of Akielos’s culture and economy. 

Walking into the wide hall, Damen’s eyes moved beyond genuflecting courtiers and bannermen and alit on the slaves, prostrated at the far reaches of the room. Among them, Damen picked out the dark curls and slender limbs of Isander. He was not wearing a collar. None of them were.

“A royal decree is not ignored in Delpha,” said Nikandros, when Damen turned to look at him, startled. “They are free. And they have come to greet their kings.”

Laurent, on Nikandros’s other side, asked, “And their duties?”

Nikandros paused. “It's difficult,” he admitted. “They have been--trained--for a specific life. But they are adept at serving at table. We pay them for it, now. And they can leave if they wish. Four have gone so far.”

“If it’s not too much trouble, Isander might attend me,” said Laurent, a request made with the perfect knowledge that it would be granted. 

And indeed, at the long table that night, it was bronze Isander who filled Laurent’s goblet and brought him selections of sweetmeats. Damen, attended by a young woman who seemed constantly on the verge of kneeling at his feet, saw the way that Laurent thanked Isander without touching him, without looking. It was more polite than one would be to a servant in Arles, and miles away from the praise and caresses of their last visit to Delpha. Damen remembered slender fingers in dark curls, the press of lips to boot leather. He wondered, not for the first time, if, being this close to the Veretian border, Isander’s training had included the intricacies of foreign lacing. 

Across the table, Laurent glanced at him, and saw him looking. Damen flushed. A new light, one that came more often now but still never often enough to satisfy Damen’s taste for it, danced briefly in Laurent’s eyes, before he turned away to respond to some query from the bannerman at his left.

After the food there was entertainment. A slave, now free, played the kithara and sang, and Damen thought beyond the words he had heard a hundred time and forward to a future where perhaps these Akielon arts were something that a merchant’s son could train in, or a prince. A song might be paid for; former slaves, now free to travel, might bring music and epics to even the poorest farming villages. 

Wanting to share this vision with Laurent, Damen turned to whisper to him, and realized he was gone. 

“King Laurent has retired,” said Nikandros, wryly. “I think he was afraid the performance would be followed by a request for another kind of performance, this time from him--Makedon looks almost as disappointed as you do at his disappearance.”

Isander was gone, too, from his post beside Laurent’s low couch. It wasn’t fair, Damen thought, for Laurent to lead him on like that. The boy had clearly been half in love two months ago, and now perhaps he thought that as a free man, Laurent might--

“An early night?” asked Nikandros, as Damen rose to leave. Damen winced. There were bannermen he should still greet, so that no one would be more honored by their king’s attention than another. Acrobats were gathering in the center of the hall, and Makedon was calling for another amphora of sweet dessert wine. Through the columns that led into the center courtyard, Damen could see the ripening pink of early evening. 

“Make my excuses,” he said, trying to pitch his voice to that of a king giving an order, not a friend begging a favor. He didn’t think it quite worked, because Nikandros’s nod had too much laughter and indulgence in it. But he couldn’t bring himself to care, really, not when he compared it to the thought of Laurent, back straight, turned away from Isander.

“Attend me,” Laurent would say, cooly. Not unkindly. Damen turned the corner, sandals half-skidding on the marble floors. There was one more doorway, and then--

Laurent, of course, was alone. He sat on the low couch, leaning just slightly against its carved stone arm, somehow both at ease and contained. In other people his position might have been described as a sprawl, but in Laurent’s case it was, as always, a balance. One leg was drawn up so that his boot rested on the couch. The other dangled silently. There was a bronze goblet, and a book open on his angled thigh. 

“I’ve insulted half my bannermen,” said Damen, stupidly. Laurent put the book down and turned his head, just slightly.

“Did you really expect to find me being debauched by poor Isander?” Laurent asked. The most ridiculous part of it, Damen thought abstractly, was Laurent’s use of the passive voice. 

“Your laces, perhaps,” Damen answered. 

“Ah,” said Laurent, something soft and fond appearing at the corners of his mouth. Damen’s chest ached suddenly, as it had worryingly often these past few weeks. Perhaps he should speak to Paschal about it. 

“Well, you’re in time. Their virtue is still intact,” Laurent said. He pulled his other leg up onto the couch and wrapped his hands around his boot-clad shins, resting his chin lightly on top of his knees. He paused, briefly, as though deciding what to say next.

“Do you really miss it?” Laurent’s voice was careful. Damen understood; this was territory that was as old as their knowledge of each other, but with a landscape so newly and radically rearranged that they had not yet figured out the safe pathways through it. Laurent was feeling for his footing. 

“I miss undressing you,” said Damen, letting the truth of it echo in his voice. “I can’t stand the thought of someone else doing it, even now. I can’t stand--I wanted to kiss your boot, that night in your tent at Fortaine. For a moment, I hated that I was the king.”

Laurent was staring at him. There was a stain, as roseate as the darkening sky, rising up from beneath his laced collar. Slowly, he unlocked his hands and let one foot fall gracefully off the couch, to rest on the shining tiles of the floor. 

The rush of heat that swept through Damen was like the driving frenzy of battle, a narrowing of focus and purpose that included no room for extraneous thought. And, as in battle, it was a relief that he lacked the resources to think of the reality of what he was about to do, what he was already doing.

For Damen had dropped to his knees in front of Laurent’s low couch, tile cold against his bare skin. In front of him was Laurent’s boot. Its dark leather was slightly overlaid by fine dust, the evidence of a king spent in the daylong activities that accompanied a visit of state. Damen, unbothered, smoothed a thumb across Laurent’s arch, clearing a small shining place. He looked up at Laurent, who nodded, pinking further, and then he bent his head. 

He could smell the richness of the leather, and beneath that something clear and sweet that was intrinsic to Laurent. He felt a pulse of arousal like the painful squeeze of a hand, and then another, stronger, when his lips touched the leather. He had not realized it would be warm, but it was. A day of Laurent’s foot inside this boot, skin and blood so close to the surface.

Once begun, he found he could not stop: there was another kiss to Laurent’s arch, an open-mouthed press, and then higher to his ankle, to his calf. 

Above him, Laurent made a surprised sound, a quick intake of breath. Damen felt a hand, long fingers carding through his hair, and he closed his eyes against the pulse that followed. It was too much, he thought. A body could not hold this much feeling and not burst. He sought, half-mindless, for a way to release it, and found himself a breath from the laces of Laurent’s trousers. Lower down, his hands still gripped the boot. 

Damen waited. He saw that Laurent’s laces strained, felt the heat of Laurent’s arousal. But this was still a part of Laurent’s internal negotiations. And on top of that he realized suddenly that he wanted badly to hear Laurent say it, to be told to give this to him.

The hand in his hair tightened. Above him, Laurent was breathing shallowly, looking at him with wide eyes and a slack mouth. 

“Damen,” he said, soft, and at the sound of his name Damen heard himself make a shocked, wanting noise. 

“Please,” he asked finally, desperate, wanting to move ahead to the place where he was doing and not thinking, and Laurent above him said, “Yes,” and then a second time, “ _yes_.”

He found that he was trying to undo the laces with his teeth and tongue, because he did not want to move his hands from the boot, and then when that became too frustrating he sought for it, helpless, with the rest of his body, so that when at last his mouth found the hot richness of Laurent, he knew what was about to happen and was powerless to stop it. Laurent’s cock was in his mouth and his boot was between Damen’s legs and then he was spilling, jerking helplessly, against the slick leather. 

“Oh,” said Laurent, and Damen felt as though from somewhere very far away the cupping of a second hand against his head, just above his ear. His eyes were closed; he was breathing hard, not thinking, the hot length of Laurent’s cock still against his lips, and he did not want to look, and at the same time he wanted more than anything to see what he knew would be there: Laurent, laces open only at the join of his thighs, black boot streaked with Damen’s seed, flushed against the length of the couch. 

Slowly, Laurent said, “It certainly is a good thing that you restrained yourself at Fortaine. Can you imagine?” and then they were laughing, Laurent bright and pleased and Damen helplessly, feeling as though perhaps he had drunk Makedon’s amphora of dessert wine after all, and another few besides.

“Come up here,” said Laurent, and left his hands in Damen’s hair as Damen let out the rest of his laughter into the warm crook of Laurent’s neck. 

After, with his chiton abandoned on the floor and Laurent’s various garments unlaced and peeled from him, one by one, when they were lying side by side while Laurent stroked with idle fascination down Damen’s chest, Laurent said, “Do you really think Isander was disappointed that he never got his First Night?”

“I don’t know,” Damen said. “Months--a year ago, I would have said yes, that he looked forward to it more than anything, that it would honor him. But now, I don’t know. Maybe he did want it, but he never had a choice about whether or not he wanted it.”

It was something Damen hadn’t yet let himself think about--the countless First Nights, the slaves whose pleasure, or what he thought was pleasure, he had taken so unthinkingly. As though he were doing them a favor. He could live another 100 years and end slavery from Akielos to Patras and beyond and he didn’t know that it would ever make up for that. 

“The basic idea, though,” said Laurent, turning over and curling his body into Damen’s in a way that was new in these last weeks and that made Damen freeze with a breathless, almost frightened joy every time, “of a first time that’s celebrated--is that only for slaves?”

Damen said, “To that extent, yes. Mine was--exciting, but not particularly ceremonial. A rite of passage, I guess, but a private one.”

“I’d like that,” said Laurent, carefully. Damen closed his eyes and breathed into the silken, mussed hair at the base of Laurent’s neck. 

“I mean,” said Laurent, turning back over and looking at Damen, “what we talked about--at the inn, before the Kingsmeet.” He flushed. 

“You’ve been thinking about it,” said Damen, pleased beyond measure. 

Laurent sat up in the bed, legs crossed, and rested his chin in his hands. His eyes glanced across Damen’s body again, happy and considering at the same time. 

“The real question, I think,” said Laurent, “is whether you’ve thought of it. I know it’s not what you prefer.”

“It’s not what I’m used to,” said Damen, reaching out to rub a thumb over Laurent’s pale knee, the thin skin there with a gentle pulse beneath it. “But it’s hard to say what I prefer. I’d never considered it, before. Since that night, though, yes, I’ve thought of it.”

He paused. “I find, with you,” he said honestly, feeling naked in a way that went beyond his body exposed to the night air, “that I want all kinds of things. Things I didn’t even know anyone could want, let alone me.”

Laurent glanced at the boot where it lay astride the couch. “My poor squire,” he said. It was Damen’s turn to flush. 

Laurent unfolded himself, placing one hand on either side of Damen’s head where it lay. The cuff gleamed gently, and he bent down to press a kiss against Damen’s mouth. A little bubble of pleasure rose and burst inside Damen. He would never get used to it, he thought. It was becoming a favorite thought. 

“I liked it,” Laurent said in a low voice, “very much. There’s a chance my squire will have to learn to overlook such things.”

His next kiss had a sweet viciousness behind it. Damen felt subsumed in it, in the deepening demand of Laurent’s mouth, in the feel of Laurent’s hands where they found his wrists and pressed them down into the covers. Cuff chimed against cuff and Damen felt himself jerk in response, groaning. Laurent was hardening against his thigh, pushing rhythmically, and Damen let his knees fall open, let himself imagine what might come, and found that he wanted it.

“You should,” he said, breaking away from the sweetness of Laurent’s mouth. Laurent looked at him, blue eyes wide. There was a moment’s hesitation, and then the determination of a decision made. Laurent kissed him again, fiercely, pressing down harder on his wrists against the sheets, and then let go all at once to turn and find something on the floor beside the bed.

Damen shifted to lie on his front, only half-thinking, of reversals, and giving of himself in the way that he most liked taking. Beside him, Laurent straightened, and Damen felt a hand settle where his back dipped into his hip and then alight again, hesitating.

His scars, Damen realized, too late, and made to turn again. Abruptly, Laurent’s hand pressed between his shoulderblades. 

“No,” said Laurent, as if to himself. “You were right. Like this.”

After that, there was silence. Laurent’s motions were gentle, but not hesitating. One hand stayed pressed between Damen’s shoulders, and with the other he drew slick fingers across Damen’s hole, over and over, firm, until Damen could not bear it and shifted to open his legs wider against the bed, inviting. The press inside burned some, and Damen bit his lip, wanting it. 

He turned his head against the bed, to try and see, and there were flashes--Laurent’s intent face, sweat beginning to darken the hair at his temples. 

“I’m going to,” Laurent said, a warning, not a question. The fingers withdrew, and there was more pressure, and then the unfolding reality of Laurent’s cock inside him. It was slow. Laurent’s hands found his, not to hold, but to press his wrists once more into the mattress above his head, a small punctuation just as he thrust fully home. 

_Oh_ , said Laurent. It was a small noise of surprise and pleasure that broke through the weight of the moment, and it echoed in Damen, who heard himself moaning suddenly, stuttering, as if it was pushed from him again and again with the growing motion of Laurent inside him. 

It was different to the other times. Not just for the obvious reasons of position and role, but the tone of it--before, it had always been a gentleness and a caution that found itself, some time later, swept away into instinctive, abandoned need. This, though, Laurent atop him--there was a force that took Damen by surprise, and that made him ache hotly. He was being fucked, he realized with a shock of arousal. Laurent was fucking him now, with driving thrusts that were intentional and relentless, giving no quarter. 

He saw himself and Laurent in the training courts, caution thrown aside in favor of the brilliant energy of an all-out fight with someone who was an adequate match. Laurent’s strength and athleticism and competitiveness, the power that he wore so openly in his political self and so hidden, sheathed, in his lithe body. Laurent pushed in again and Damen groaned out loud, with how good it was. He felt hot and dazed by wanting, nearly insensible. 

“Laurent,” he said, and then again, abandoned. “Laurent-- _Laurent--_ ”

“You like it,” Laurent said, and there was relief hidden somewhere there, overlayed by rough arousal. “You like it, Damen--”

“You’re _good_ at it,” said Damen, shivering with the pleasure of it, and that made Laurent huff a laugh that was half a groan.

“Don’t,” he said, “sound so surprised,” and then he ducked his head down and fixed sharp teeth on the tendon where Damen’s shoulder met his neck, a fierce bite. 

“Tell me again,” he said, breath hot by Damen’s ear. He stopped, and Damen made a noise of wordless need. “Say it,” said Laurent, and lingered there.

“Please,” said Damen, “it’s so good, Laurent. I want it, don’t stop--”

“Yes,” said Laurent, “okay, yes,” and then he started again, and Damen gave himself over to the feeling of it. Laurent’s breath against his neck was hot and panting. Damen was hard, leaking against the bed, and thought that he could come like this, soon, if only a hand--but Laurent had his hands, still trapped.

“I need,” he said, and then asked. “My hand, please--”

Laurent released him, and tugged at Damen’s hips, urging, so that they came up off the bed and he was on his hands and knees. Laurent’s hands settled at his hips, holding him there to be fucked. The thought of it, just as Damen got a hand around his leaking cock, was too much. He was losing himself, back in the fog that had swept over him as he dropped to his knees for Laurent. And again, he found himself acting before he could think about what it meant, or why, knowing only that he wanted to hear Laurent tell him to come. 

“Can I,” he asked, near babbling, too close and needing it too much to hold back. “Can I come, Laurent--”

Laurent, fucking him, stuttered. Damen felt a hand in his hair, pulling him up, so that he was kneeling upright with Laurent still behind him.

“Let me see,” said Laurent, and rested a chin on Damen’s shoulder--still inside him, but moving now with only slight motions of his hips. 

Damen looked at his hand on his cock and knew that Laurent was seeing it too. “ _Please_ ,” he said again, barely knowing what he was asking for. 

Laurent’s hand, still in his hair, tugged brutally. His hips snapped forward.

“Come for me,” he said, " _Damen_ ," and Damen’s body obeyed. 

He lost seconds afterwards, or maybe longer--enough time to come back to himself only to find that he was on his back now, with Laurent kneeling astride him. Laurent was still hard. He was stroking himself idly, watching Damen with heavy, gentle eyes.

“You’re beautiful,” he said to Damen, biting his lip. “I mean, you know that, but.”

Damen stretched, smiling. The impossibility of this, of Laurent above him, of what they had just done and what they would continue to do, was the kind of miracle ballads were written for.

“It was good,” Laurent said.

“Yes,” said Damen. “It was--” _adequate_ , he wanted to joke, but there was the trace of a question in the way Laurent was looking at him. As if checking for wounds after a battle. 

“I loved it,” Damen said instead. And then, feeling easy and warm, still flushed with the pleasure of orgasm and the ongoing pleasure of Laurent’s slender limbs and golden hair--now dampened with sweat at the hairline--he continued. 

“I loved feeling you inside me,” he said. “I loved the feeling of it, but also the thought, of you taking me, laying me out--the feeling of you holding me down.”

Laurent’s breathing quickened, the motion of his hand picking up just slightly. 

“Being on my knees for you, before,” Damen said. Laurent was making small noises, now, little open-mouthed gasps. 

“Your hand in my hair,” he said, “your hands on my wrists, my hips, your fingers--”

Laurent pitched forward slightly, hair falling across his face, and Damen reached out to brush it away. He left his hand there, the slightest contact, as Laurent came in a hot streak across Damen’s chest. 

“Knowing that this was only for you,” Damen said, softer now, as he pulled Laurent down to lie against him even in the mess. Laurent’s chest rose and fell, and Damen’s hands met a sheen of sweat on his lower back. 

The sky outside was fading to a deep, bruised blue-black. Usually, in these moments, Laurent would get up for a towel, or for some space. But Damen felt abruptly selfish, like he needed this--his hands around Laurent in this moment, the truth of their bodies together. 

“You’re the only person I’ve ever--” Damen said, and Laurent rose up to kiss him, cutting off whatever might have followed. 

It didn’t matter, Damen thought, gloriously, giving himself over to the kiss. There would be time for that, and more.


End file.
